Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Reddit is trying to destroy itself and Andy is a vegetarian - Add to Party 06.07.2023
5 Plays1 year ago
This week we discuss Reddit's upcoming changes to its API pricing, why redfall was bad and our excitement for Summer Game Fest
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Air Quality Concerns
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party. Friendship Simulator masquerading is a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles Jamont, and I'm joined by Andy K.
00:00:26
Speaker
Oh, hello. Hello. Hello. How are you? You smell that in the air, baby? I don't, I don't know. What am I smelling? Canadian wildfires. No, but also E3C. Oh yeah, it's like LA over here. Is Canada on fire? Oh yeah, it is. Canada on fire. When did this happen? NPR didn't tell me about this. The quabecuar on fire, actually. I don't know what that means.
00:00:54
Speaker
So people. Wait, is that why my air quality was low? Yes, that is why your air quality is low. I got an alert on my phone. I had to Google what bad air quality was. I've never seen that before. And the recommendation is to close your windows.
00:01:10
Speaker
when the air quality is bad, which makes sense, but how am I going to stay cool if my windows were closed? I was debating, do I open my windows and suffer the air? It looked fine outside. Let me tell you, the advisory in the Pacific Northwest during warm wildfire season is
00:01:32
Speaker
You're two, what is it, the two hose portable AC and then an air purifier right next to it. Yep. I don't know if I followed that. Two hose portable. What does that mean? Well, so there's portable ACs that don't just have one hose that goes out to the window. It uses two, one for in and out. Oh, for some reason I thought it was like one tube.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah. Well, there is one hose, portable ACs, right? Oh, okay. But the reason you do two hoses is so that you keep a constant air pressure in the house. Because otherwise you get negative air pressure and your air is being pushed or pulled out of the apartment.
00:02:18
Speaker
Okay. With one hose. So that's more for comfort. Sure. The next to that is your air purifier to keep the air that's being sucked in good. Wow. I didn't know about this at all. Does this mean I need an air purifier?
00:02:34
Speaker
Sure. I don't want one. If you want to be able to use your window AC during bad air quality times. Well, that is the first time ever in my life I've seen bad air quality. Sounds like it's not a deal for you. I think yesterday the air quality in Boston was worse than that in LA. Really? Yeah. Wait, does no one open their windows in LA? LA has bad traffic.
00:02:58
Speaker
Or do they just like, have they equalized, have their lungs and health equalized with the pollution in the air? It's like New York in the 80s, you know, it's just, there's a, there's a nice, there's a nice layer of smog. Smog just over everything. It's too bad. That's too bad. Fine. Well, now I know. Thanks Canada for ruining my afternoon. I'm so sorry. I know. That's what they say because they're Canadian.
00:03:31
Speaker
It was difficult, because it was a nice day out. But anyways, now it's... Oh, well, maybe I'll look it up. But anyways, thank you for that information.
Vegetarian Exploration & Ethical Eating
00:03:40
Speaker
Well, I'm glad. I'm glad I could let you know about your issues. You know what's hanging in my ear? What's that? The smell of mushrooms. Not like psychedelics. That's a whole other aspect. I was about to say, and he's exploring some horizons. No, but I, today,
00:03:58
Speaker
I made like a vegetarian dish with HelloFresh, and I was thinking, I might be able to be a vegetarian. Mushrooms are really good. Like, they smell great, and they have like a mushroom stock in it. It was like, it was like meaty, but like, really good. I don't know, this is my first experience cooking with a mushroom forward dish. It was great. So I wanted to show that. Where do mushrooms fall in your anti-vegetable stance?
00:04:29
Speaker
I eat mushrooms. Okay. Isn't that a new development for you? It's been about three years. Okay. Okay. Still new. Still new. Yeah, that's still new. Yeah. Um, but Andy, the look of confusion on my face when you said you could leave me was like, if this was a, if this was a live studio audience, they'd be talking fucking like that.
00:04:57
Speaker
Andy, did you know that when you cook mushrooms with meat, it enhances the flavor of mushrooms too? It's, I don't know Charles, this was kind of transformative what I experienced tonight. I've had mushrooms in like dishes with me, but to have like mushrooms be the protein of a dish, I don't actually know if mushrooms have protein, but I mean to say like, they what?
00:05:24
Speaker
They don't. They don't. But you know, they have like a type of like texture and... Fiber. Fiber. Thank you.
00:05:32
Speaker
Um, to a dish that now I've just been thinking this is like as of 30 minutes ago, by the way, that I decided I'm vegetarian. Uh, I would say in the last year to two years, I have two or three vegetarian dishes a week. Really? Yeah. See, I thought like I couldn't do that at all. Like, and especially with HelloFresh, I feel like I'm not going to get my money's worth if I don't have a protein in it. Um, but this was wonderful tonight.
00:06:01
Speaker
Oh my gosh. That's your American indoctrination, Andy, that everything must contain a meat. I think so. But, well, tell me about your vegetarian lifestyle. I don't know.
00:06:15
Speaker
It's just don't have meat. I don't know really what to tell you. It's I have like a chickpea dinner. This might say a pasta, you know, some things. So do you put anything, I guess because when I think of a dish that if it doesn't have meat.
00:06:33
Speaker
Lates, I have ramen. Did it just mean it's just a dish without meat? Yeah, I didn't say that, right? I mean, technically, I have four dishes a week. That's that's vegetarian. What is it, breakfast? Let's say ramen, cereal. Oh, well, as a dinner, as a dinner. Yeah. Yeah. Like baked potato. Oh, baked potato. So good.
00:07:01
Speaker
I feel like you didn't see that frame of reference in your head. I'm pretty sure you've had just vegetarian coincidental dishes. That's not true, Charles. Every meal Annie's ever had an animal has had to die.
00:07:20
Speaker
Well, I eat buttered noodles sometimes. That's a vegetarian dish. That doesn't feel like I can call it a vegetarian. But it is. It is. But it doesn't feel like clever. I feel like to make it a vegetarian.
00:07:35
Speaker
You understand, right? It's literally, there are literally people who, if they do not have an animal protein with their meal, they don't consider it dinner. Like that is like a clever substitute. You don't have to have, have you never had a salad for dinner, Randy? Yeah, but then you put stuff in it. Actually, no, I don't think I've ever had a salad for dinner. Really? I can maybe open a meal with salad, but no. The Italian me scoffs at you.
00:08:04
Speaker
What I don't know is the joke is Italians eat their salad after dinner. Oh, really? Yes. Wait, is that real? Yes, it would be pastas. You don't have to have meat. There's good sauces. Yeah, but I don't know. I just feel like, again, there has to be like.
00:08:25
Speaker
I feel like there has to be like some, some twist to dishes to make it vegetarian. But I guess my butter noodles are vegetarian. Have you ever had the grilling cheese from HelloFresh? I don't know what that is. Every now and then you'll see it in a week, they'll have a meal where it says like easy grilling cheese or something like that. No, I've never had that. It's paneer.
00:08:49
Speaker
It's like, it's a very dense cheese and what you do is you just kind of fry it in oil and the sides get crispy. It's very good. Ooh. That sounds, see, that's a clever twist. Yes, I know. That's why I suggested it too. That's a vegetarian dish. Next time you look it up on, next time you see it on HelloFresh, why don't you get that?
00:09:07
Speaker
I will. Well, I am a vegetarian now, so I'm going to have to learn about this lifestyle. Can I use chicken stock in a dish and call us vegetarian? Well, no. Well, if you want to serve it to a vegetarian, no. But I'm a vegetarian. Yeah. There's I like there's like economic economical. What is it?
00:09:34
Speaker
ethical vegetarianism where it's basically like, like, yeah, you can use stock and everything like that. That's not like a big deal, but it's just, you're not like having animal protein or contributing to like death or whatever with every meal. That's it. I, um, I'm, I didn't know this about somebody, um, I was hanging out with this weekend, but, uh, I found out.
00:09:58
Speaker
that, um, they don't like, um, buying meat from, from people. Um, yeah. Oh yeah. So, uh, I don't think I followed that. What was that? So they don't like buying meat from like stores and or like restaurants and stuff. Okay. Um, uh, and because they object to the, um,
00:10:20
Speaker
the waste that is created when raising animals for meat. So not even the treatment, just the waste. Yeah. That's a side benefit, right? But it's not good for the environment when you're aggressively for commercial farming for meat, right? Yeah.
00:10:46
Speaker
And so they actually just hunt all their food, all their men. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. They just hunt their meat for all their meat. Wait, like hunt like urban foraging. What are those tiktoks? James, you're the expert. I mean, yeah. They don't. They don't have to do it. They don't have to hunt in the city, Andy. Yeah, they could. They could drive the two to three hours out of the city.
00:11:14
Speaker
Well, if this is incorporated in your life, you're going to drive three hours every week or something. Do you know how they catch it? I don't know. You understand how much meat is on a deer. Yeah. I just picture like your weekly grocery trip, except now you have to kill animals. No, it's not weekly. Oh, no. Oh.
00:11:39
Speaker
It doesn't get a deer. Honestly, this is a part of why I have to agree with them that people are too far removed from, you know, their meat and other. Oh, I purposely remain ignorant. It would make me too sad. I mean, that's that's always the thing. I think like I kill a cow to eat it. Yeah. Yeah, I would. I kill. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I do it. Yeah, I'd say sorry.
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like man. And then you mainly kill the animal as fast as possible. Yeah, that's right. Are we talking like pressing a button and I can look away to kill it? Oh, I mean, I mean, like if I had a knife, it was me or a cow. I was like, just be fair. The cow might kill me first. If I'm not good. I mean, they're not true. You do. Yeah. All right. Yeah. But.
00:12:32
Speaker
But no, I mean, yeah, there that's, it's part of, you have to come at peace with what it means to like, uh, like, you know, my partner won't eat veal. And I understand that because it is kind of, you know, it's a little, well, that's, yeah, that and like full gras too. What is full gras? Oh, Andy, you don't know about full gras. No, it's not the trigger, trigger warning animal abuse. Uh,
00:13:00
Speaker
Uh, let's jump ahead. Like two minutes. Uh, is like they force feed ducks, um, food and literally they show like a shoot down their gullet and just force feed them. So the livers get huge and fatty and delicious.
00:13:18
Speaker
Oh, my God. And then, yeah, no, it's fucked up. It's fucked up. Does any place even serve that? It's it's well, it used to be a big thing in like fine dining. It's gone slightly out of fashion if people have been like, you know, this is kind of fucked up.
00:13:36
Speaker
There is slightly more ethical ways to make it, but I've heard from people, it's like, it's not the same as when you force. I mean, cruelty is a flavor. Yeah. Or a spider. No, it is gross. I'm looking it up right now. Super gross, but you can't get it on Amazon. So at least they're not evil that way.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that part's not bad. Yeah, there you go. At least Amazon has its hands clean of you and clean of four for four grand foie gras gras. It's French. F.O.I.E. Space G.R.A. Oh, it's illegal. Yeah, it's illegal. I mean, well, because it's animal cruelty. Yeah, they banned it arguing that. Well, for what we discussed. Yeah. Oh, so it's banned. Cool.
00:14:27
Speaker
Anyways, I'm a vegetarian, so that's no longer a problem for me.
00:14:32
Speaker
OK, everything I eat is ethical. Oh, but does that mean I need to like shop at local farms now? Yeah, you do, buddy. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get in the local butcher co-op. CSA's or something. CSA's. Yep. Oh, let me tell you this. Sometimes you get those meats from those like those CSA's. It is real good. Oh, they have a name if it's not expensive. My thing is, every couple of years, I think to myself, I want to get like a quarter of a cow.
00:14:59
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. But a quarter of a cow is still so much food. Yeah. So like six hundred dollars. Yeah. Well, it's still it's a lot, though. It's a lot. Yeah. But it is a lot of money, though. Yeah, it's basically frozen. And then you just don't have to buy meat for like the fucking year. Sure. Well, it's like it's one of those things where if you want to do that, you have to get into that chest freezer life. And I'm just not there yet. Yeah. And it's a problem, you know.
00:15:28
Speaker
You don't need a garage, you just need a space. No, they only go on garages. Or basements. That's true, but I feel like they're... You know, I do have my own outlet plug in the basement, but here's the thing. I know if I had a chest freezer in the basement, I would never get anything.
00:15:44
Speaker
I was just going to say, you got to take that up and down stairs, like food up and down stairs. Yep. You don't want to do that. Right. Like how my family has one in their basement and we had it for 14 years. And they go up and down the stairs. You know how many kids they have to make them do it themselves. Ooh, that's fair. Put it on the young people. They've got the energy. I don't.
00:16:08
Speaker
Do you know how much of a struggle it's to walk downstairs to do my laundry? Mm-mm. I'm not getting food out of that. Your building doesn't have an elevator? It does. But I'm on the second floor, and you can't get out of here. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I was like, Charles was on the sixth floor. Yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker
You can take it if you're on the sixth floor, not the second floor. Yeah, but your whole thing of laundry seems reasonable, then. I don't, it feels weird. When I was wearing a brace, I would use the elevator. Cause then I could like go like, ah, get one of those nice like little roller ones and just roll it right into the elevator with you. That's not cool. Who are you trying to impress in your building? Who already doesn't know you?
00:16:54
Speaker
To be fair, I don't know if I've seen those rolly ones. Or at least no one in my building uses rolly ones. Andy, you know what that means. The trendsetter. I'm a trendsetter. You'd be like, that Andy is always thinking two steps ahead. It would be nice just to roll my laundry down to the laundry room. Right now it's like, I have to like lean it onto my hip and like just swing my body forward. Andy, what are you doing?
00:17:22
Speaker
I also tried to.
Reddit's API Changes & Community Reaction
00:17:24
Speaker
So today I'm a vegetarian. Last week I realized. Last week I brutalized the cow. Yes. And afterwards I had to do my laundry and it was an enormous amount. So I decided I'm going to make a commitment to myself. I should do laundry every week. I haven't done it this week, so I've already broken the promise. But do you guys do laundry every week? Yep. Oh.
00:17:51
Speaker
You know, that way it's not a giant thing you have to do. Yeah, mine. It's it's the worst. I used to do it every two weeks. Yeah. That is when I had to drive to a laundromat. Oh, mine is downstairs. Yes. When I had to drive to a laundromat, I was like, I'm not doing this every week. No, but like if you do it every week, that's very manageable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:20
Speaker
I just don't know. Andy, I'm doing laundry right now. Really? Yeah. I did laundry as soon as I got home from last night while we were doing Pathfinder. Huh. And then it was done by the time we were done. Andy, I need you to just think about your life slightly more deliberately. You know what I mean? It takes multiple days of thinking about laundry to do laundry.
00:18:49
Speaker
You gotta like, prepare emotionally for that day. Do you, do you like hang out downstairs? No. Then what the fuck is your problem? I have to bring it down there! And then you have to walk up, and then you have to go downstairs again to move it to the dryer, and then you have to walk up, and then you go downstairs again and hope your clothes are dry. It's a lot of stress. Sometimes my clothes aren't all the way there. How long have you lived in this building?
00:19:14
Speaker
like a million years haven't you figured out how long it takes for your clothes how many cycles it takes for your clothes to draw it's a roulette
00:19:22
Speaker
Charles, is it that bad or is he just Andy? No, it's just Andy. Okay, that's fair. What are you talking about? Well, we've already had this fight, but I dry my clothes on Gentle. Okay. So do I. Wait, I thought you don't use tumble dry low. No, I use heavy duty for the wash. Oh yeah, you have to do gentle tumble dry low.
00:19:46
Speaker
No, I do heavy duty wash because I am a man who has odors and then and then it's then gentle or not tumble dry low to for the dryer Takes two cycles. Oh, I've never had it fucked never had a fuck-up. Oh, well, that's a dollar seventy-five more I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, that's
00:20:11
Speaker
And for that extra $1.75, I don't think about it. Yeah. For me, it's this like this waiting and the strike. $1.75 for you? Yeah. Jesus Christ. It's a dollar for me. Really? Yeah. A dollar for 45 minutes.
00:20:29
Speaker
Wow. No, $1.75, but it is downstairs. Disgusting. I know. Anyways, so you guys, that's how I've reinvented myself this week. Yeah. Well, speaking of things that are ripoffs, like Andy's laundry. That's fair. Hey, you know what we don't talk a lot about on this show? What's that? Not games. No. Let's talk about how Reddit's trying to destroy itself. Oh, that's right.
00:20:59
Speaker
yep so if you're unfamiliar with reddit it's not just a place for misogynists to come to complain about women um it's a pretty
00:21:10
Speaker
It's a pretty lively community. I think we've talked about, if you've ever watched the VOD, but mostly podcast people listen to this, but it's usually where I get my gaming news. It's a news aggregator website. It's also a place where people from communities can come together and post on interest. And those can go as far as, you know, gunpla, cooking, gardening, sexual deviance.
00:21:41
Speaker
Um, remember when someone sent me to clop, clop. Yeah. Yeah. It can get real weird. Um, but I mean, it's, it's a big umbrella, right? And for better or worse, right? It's, it's a lot of places where people can find like many people and share information. Honestly, it's, it's weird to say this, but thinking about it, it's probably the second biggest repository of knowledge on the internet next to Wikipedia. Agreed.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah. Like if Wikipedia is sourced information, Reddit is anecdotal information. Sure. Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker
Which I've been reading like, um, especially now with like AI and as we're train or tuning algorithms, they want to use spaces like Reddit in terms of informality. I don't know if you read about this, but that is going to come into play. Yes. Yes. And I mean, go ahead because. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So, so why are we talking about Reddit destroying itself? So if you're unfamiliar, if you're unfamiliar with.
00:22:41
Speaker
So that's what Reddit is. A majority of people, I would say a majority of people, I don't know the exact numbers, but at least half to more people on their phones use third party applications to access Reddit. Reddit does have its own official mobile app. I think that only came out like six years, seven years ago at this point.
00:23:05
Speaker
But Reddit's been around for more than a decade. So third party mobile apps have been supporting Reddit for a long time. And they access Reddit through its API. And not to get too into the weeds of what an API is, but essentially it's just kind of a little gateway that third party applications can use to query.
00:23:25
Speaker
the information from Reddit to display in their applications. And for the longest time, that's been free. And it's been great for everyone. And it's also fair to say too, it's not just third party like mobile apps using this too. There are other websites using it. Reddit Stream, which is a website where
00:23:46
Speaker
it will refresh a Reddit thread on like a fixed basis. So you can always see the newest comments. I use that often for sporting events. I want to see like people like reacting to sporting events in real time. Um, or even news. Like if there's like big news going on too, you were using Reddit stream for that is also very interesting. Um,
00:24:05
Speaker
but also things like bot tools, right? Where people, if you've ever posted to Reddit or gone to Reddit, mods use that API and bots connected to that API to help police their subreddits. And that's going to be a big reason for what we're going to get into why they're killing themselves.
00:24:25
Speaker
So like I said, this API has been free for the longest time. With 30 days notice, they have reached out to all their API. Reddit has reached out to all their API, letting them know of their new pricing.
00:24:39
Speaker
Um, I don't have it right here. I can try to find it, but it is ridiculously expensive. Something in the neighborhood of like a million dollars for a not acceptable amount of area.
00:25:01
Speaker
50 million requests, 50 million API requests will cost $12,000, which again, if you say to yourself, well, that's a lot. And to be fair, sure. Apollo, which is the biggest third-party app
00:25:18
Speaker
for Apple and iOS, made 7 billion requests just last month, which would put it at $1.7 million per month, or $20 million US dollars per year. The average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $250 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so they'd be the red in every month.
00:25:46
Speaker
Uh, this, and basically to the, to give some rough comparison, uh, Twitter recently pulled this bullshit, which is why all your third party apps for Twitter went away. Um, yeah. And they asked for $42,000 for every 50 million tweets pulled.
00:26:04
Speaker
So, you know, hey, it's $30,000 cheaper than Twitter asked. But then you also look at something like Imgur, Imgur, however you want to call it, which is basically it's kind of a photo image hosting website. It's deeply tied to the history of Reddit, but it's its own website. And they ask only, only $166
00:26:29
Speaker
for the same 50 million API calls. Oh, wow. So, you know, if you look at Emger and kind of go, this is maybe an order of magnitude smaller than Reddit. Sure. Um, but they're asking 166.
00:26:45
Speaker
for 50 million API calls to then get to $12,000 for 50 million. That is not a level of service that is basically here to just kill third-party apps. Now, why would Reddit want to do this? Well, because if you're using the API, you're not on Reddit's official website or its official app. And if it's not on your official app, they can't track everything you do and they can't serve you ads as efficiently. And if they can't do that, they can't make as much money.
00:27:16
Speaker
So guess what? We're not killing third party apps, guys. We're just pricing it and you figure it out on your own, but they're effectively killing third party apps. So. And they're thinking of going public, right? I think they are planning an IPO, which is initial public offering sometime in sometime this year or 2024, I believe. Yeah. So I think they're setting themselves up for it. And I guess I kind of.
00:27:46
Speaker
Oh, come on, Andy. Defend this. I want to hear it. Yeah. So well, here's where my brain's at. Uh-huh. Like both sides. Yeah.
00:28:00
Speaker
Let me play devil's advocate says the white man. OK, I guess because my brain is thinking about right now with A.I. combing and taking all this information or not necessarily combing, but directly calling in polling. Maybe they can comb it. I don't know.
00:28:18
Speaker
But I mean, A.I. is taking all this information and Reddit doing all the work, right? Is Reddit doing all the work? Well, no, its users are doing all the work. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, but they're they're still creating an environment and they employ like two thousand people, I think.
00:28:36
Speaker
Right. And I would say they employ, they, they employ, quote unquote, thousands, tens of thousands of more unpaid moderators. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I mean, it's not nothing and it's just like.
00:28:55
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what should be free because there's a material cost to all of this. I don't think anyone's arguing that it shouldn't be free. I mean, everyone will prefer it would be free, right? I think that's fair. But everyone kind of wants their pricing to be in a more reasonable... That I thousand percent agree with. I don't think their pricing is even close to reasonable. I think what I meant to say is I don't blame them for charging.
00:29:24
Speaker
Well, I don't think anyone that's not the argument. Yeah. Well, I thought even the fucking even the main person of Apollo, the main developer on his own one person, by the way, Apollo is a one person team. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I love him for it because, yeah, Apollo has been great. But he's literally was just like.
00:29:44
Speaker
No, we were completely fine with them charging it. We were free for so long. But it is clear that they weren't even trying to let us still live because for Apollo specifically, for one month of usage, he would be paying $20 million.
00:30:00
Speaker
No, in a month, that was a year, right? It was $20 million per year. And about $1.7 million per month would be... Still an enormous amount of money, right? Yeah. Which I understand. And I guess I was reacting more so to, I don't know,
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. Who are you reacting to? I guess what I was reacting to was, well, we all know what happened when I had feelings about video games and pricing. I think I was reacting to like this idea of, you know, we need to keep it free, free and open information, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't know if I'm speaking to anyone directly when I say that. I think I'm just reacting to the idea that people want things for free and think things that cost no money.
00:30:46
Speaker
I mean, and here's the thing, right? Charles, do you have Apollo? Is it a monthly subscription? No, pay once. It's a one-time. I paid $5 like 20 years ago. Yeah, exactly. Well, I've used a couple on Android. Right now, I'm using Sync. Yeah, let's say I use the red, let's say Alien Blue. I read it and then ruined it.
00:31:13
Speaker
I mean, there's other fun little details about this too, which I can kind of dive in on. One I already said too, which is basically most of the moderators that run and keep these subreddits, right, these communities clean and highly attractive, right, are unpaid. And part of the reason they do that is, or part of the way they do that is through bots that they've automated and tools that people have developed that run off those APIs. Reddit has promised
00:31:43
Speaker
that it's like, no, no, no, we'll get official moderator tools up. And like, that's a great thing, right? That they, they want to do that, but they should have those ready before they turn off the API. Yeah. Right. It's like, that's like business, like business planning 101, which is like, we're going to do something later, but just turn it off now. Like that's not, that's not a plan. That's just being like, fuck it. Um,
00:32:07
Speaker
Secondly, the official Reddit app actually doesn't I don't know if this is just iOS and Android, but I know if I know from what I read on iOS, the official Reddit app does not support screen readers. So people who are visually impaired, like people, the people who are legally blind, right, they need screen readers to read the text to them cannot use the official app. So.
00:32:31
Speaker
Without the API in third-party applications, they would be unable to use Reddit. Yeah. Seemingly, too, they also have third-party tools that leverage the API on desktop as well to help that as well because their screen reader functionality and the formatting of Reddit is not great.
00:32:47
Speaker
on desktop either. But it's really coming down to a more mobile argument. And then one other piece of news that I think everyone should be aware of is that also Reddit saying, as also moving to this pricing model too, all content marked not safe for work will be removed from the API. So even if someone does pay, if your content is marked or your community is marked not safe for work,
00:33:14
Speaker
You ain't getting it on your phone. Why? What an, what an idiot thing. And I know it's very easy. It's very easy to go my porn and yeah, sure. Reddit is by, by and large a large community of pornography.
00:33:34
Speaker
But that doesn't just include pornography, right? There are, not safe for work is also used for conversations of like an intense and triggering nature, um, content, medical, right? Medical content. Um, and also, you know, images that frankly speaking are triggering, right? So they're there. It's not just porn. It's just things that are like, you know, slightly more adults, slightly more, um,
00:33:59
Speaker
You know, you don't want people just walking into it without seeing it. You want a warning, right? But if the API doesn't have any of that, then well, fuck. It's like you now just neutered. I have no odds concept of how much of Reddit is not safe for work versus not safe for work by their metrics. But you've just cut out a huge swath of the content for the API too.
00:34:20
Speaker
So man, I'm, I'm sitting over here watching Twitter, slow motion death, which honestly, I checked Twitter less and less every day because tweet deck is the only way that I interact with Twitter. Now that the third party apps are gone and I literally only stick with Twitter because that is the only place I get content from. Some people I like to follow, right? They post a Twitter, um, mastodon.
00:34:43
Speaker
Well, they're still there. Blue Sky, I think, is going to be the replacement, which is the former CEO of Twitter, has an invite-only social media platform he's working on. Isn't he like a crypto bro, though? Yeah, well, you know, people are weird. But now I'm sitting here going, man, this might be
00:35:03
Speaker
Reddit doesn't change course. Reddit is a desktop only experience is going to be rough. Like I don't, I browsing Reddit on my phone is something I do like first thing in the morning. Like that's, I go to our all I refresh and I say, Hey, does anything blow up yesterday? No, great. You know what I mean? Like that's, that is a news aggregator and that's where I get a lot of my news. Um, and there's nothing like Reddit.
00:35:29
Speaker
There are some competitors. What, Dig? Well, remember, Dig dies so Reddit could run. Yeah, exactly. And it's not going to go, it's not going to reverse. I don't see Dig living. I would certainly say Reddit is much bigger than Dig ever was. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I was never a Dig person. I was on FARC.com. I don't know FARC. I was a Dig person. What's FARC?
00:35:55
Speaker
Farkas, it was also a news aggregator with forum-like thing. It's still there today. I don't know if the creator is problematic. His name is Drew Curtis. He was always kind of a problematic person. If someone was going to be problematic, it was going to be him. But I don't know enough to know if he was or was not or is not.
00:36:14
Speaker
This means we're going to have to use 4chan. Yeah, sure. That's what's going to replace it. I'm ready to reinstall StumbleUpon. That's why I would call it that in a long time.
00:36:31
Speaker
world. Um, as just one final piece about this before we just complete, he can get into more of our takes, but also, um, starting June 12th, several subreddits and big subreddits that are going dark for at least, um, at least two days is most of their commitment with, uh, most of them either saying they're going private, which means you won't be able to access the subreddit at all.
00:36:56
Speaker
Um, or just restricting content. So it will still be up, but new posts will not be allowed. Um, yeah, man, I just see this and I'm like, fuck if they do this, this might, this might be like, like it was so, I remember when dig did dig 2.0 and it just,
00:37:20
Speaker
Cratered like I how fast would you say dig died was like three four months? Yeah, there's less than a year guaranteed Number 2.0. I think I transitioned to reddit before dig died Yeah there I mean people were bleeding off to reddit for a while cuz dig was implementing a lot of bullshit I
00:37:41
Speaker
It's just so weird. Like, you know, there's been a lot of times people are like, Oh, right. It's like for normies now. And it was like, what was the big thing? It was like, well, they banned revenge.
00:37:52
Speaker
And people were very upset. Yeah, that's the real spirit of Reddit. But it was, you know, this is the first time I think there was also the time that the CEO slash co-creator Spaz edited some people's comments in the back end and people were like, you can't, we can't. This is not something we can do.
00:38:14
Speaker
It invalidates the whole of the concept of the website if admins go in and change people's comments. That one I think was a decent controversy. But I think this time is like, this is one of the few times where Reddit's like, boy, you are on the wrong side of this Reddit.
00:38:32
Speaker
Agreed. They're looking at money and we'll see what happens because they die without their community, which just makes it so stupid. But if they want money, like if they re- I mean, I'm sure they have balance sheets to figure this out, but it's like, if they want money, charge them a reasonable rate. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and also like,
00:38:52
Speaker
People don't realize how there's so much content that gets generated spun off of Reddit from the threads that people create. Yeah, like, you know, there are fucking giant YouTube channels where people just add voice text to speech to post on Reddit and just read them out loud.
00:39:13
Speaker
Oh, I didn't like that. Like the MIT asshole ones are like fucking like just just all these random ass like subreddits. There's so like, you know, the joke like BuzzFeed just goes just goes into a popular Reddit thread, gaming Reddit thread and just goes and makes an article from it is just like, there it is. Whatever. Like it's it's a very often used thing that I think
00:39:40
Speaker
doesn't always get its full credit on how much conversation spins off from it. Yeah. Reddit is as important to culture as I would say TikTok is. Yeah, that is huge. It's a big deal. I don't know. It's just, man, I don't know. This is... Reddit's been such a weird... I mean, Reddit is how the three of us met.
00:40:06
Speaker
That's true. Right. Oh, on a D and D are looking. Yeah. We're looking for a group post for a D and D group. That's how the three of us met. And that's what I mean. It's like red has been such a core part of our lives for the better part of a decade now that I'm like sitting here going like if I had to shut down or I mean shut, it's not going to shut. Well, who knows? But you know, if Reddit stops becoming what it is today, right?
00:40:36
Speaker
Um, by obligation, we have to disband the D and D group separate ways. Um, but I mean, it's like communities will fracture and I'm sure something will come up, but it's going to be a weird wild west time where, man, it's, it's going to be tough to just get everything like, like.
00:40:57
Speaker
I've heard a lot of people come up with like that thing that I've been saying for a lot of time, which is like, Hey, do you want to figure out how to do something? Type in your search query and then type Reddit at the end of it. Cause I guarantee you someone's asked that question in the community specifically on Reddit already.
00:41:13
Speaker
And you'll get a lot of good detailed information out of there. Like you're not, we're not going to have that if Reddit starts splintering off because people said start shedding its user base because of this. So like discord is not infinitely searchable like this. Yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker
I know this is very disappointing. I'm very sad. I mean, also, I would say to you, too, like, I think we, you know, activism, activism is what it is. But, you know, Hey, try not to use Reddit for like June 12th, June 13th. Right. Just try to tank their numbers. Right. Like that's the way you're going to get, huh? Yeah. Don't masturbate during those days, guys. That's fine. Okay.
00:41:58
Speaker
Or you know what? Just, Hey, download a bunch, right? Save it for later. Yeah, it's sad. I'm sad. I'm sad about it. Like it's so funny too. Like, I don't know if you've ever talked to people who don't like, they only know Reddit in passing, which is like, Oh, you know, I'm on Reddit and they kind of look at you funny. I'm like, but I'm not a misogynist. Like Reddit still kind of has a bad, a bad, uh,
00:42:29
Speaker
Well, listen, guys, we found the Boston bomber, so it's okay. Oh, man. That was a rough one. You know that lesson in how bad witch hunting can be. Reddit is the best and the worst thing.
00:42:46
Speaker
Hey, Secret Santa is a great event. And now they killed that, Charles. I know. They killed it? Yeah, they killed it. There's something about sharing addresses and people are sending things that it didn't. I mean, Reddit's a different place than I'm sure when Secret Santa was on the road. Yeah, I participated in it.
00:43:08
Speaker
Aww. I did, too, actually. I was hoping to get that Bill Gates Reddit. Yeah, I know. You always hope to get Bill Gates. Never did. I got a professional baseball player, though, once. Ooh. I sent him a bunch of coffee. He was very excited. Oh, yeah. Yeah. From one disappointment to another. Hey, remember how we talked about how Redfall was going to have a fantastic, like, what the fuck happened to your article?
00:43:38
Speaker
Hey, it's here. Cover reporter, Jason Shrier on the move again.
Gaming Industry Insights & Rumors
00:43:43
Speaker
So what the fuck happened with Redfall? Well, that's what happens is when 70% of the team that made prey are Austin. Arkane's previous game left the studio during the development of Redfall because they did not want to make a live service shooter. Yeah. Yeah. So you 70%.
00:44:07
Speaker
And that's not to say like they didn't replace those people as they switched out. But when you're talking about pedigree for game design, yeah, that's what's going to fucking kill you. Also, notes to that Redfall was announced at the time when Zenny Max, the previously private studio that Microsoft bought, pushed Redfall out at the same time. They also pushed out Fallout 76. And what was the other game?
00:44:34
Speaker
I don't know. Well, there's one more game that had stupid light service. Oh, Wolfenstein Youngblood. Oh, that had live service. Yes, it did. And that's why people didn't like it. People also didn't like Fallout 76. So this this was part of them trying to create a live service department or life service platform and Fallout 76 failure. Wolfenstein Youngblood failure. Redfall failure.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's also funny to think about that too, is that Activision had a publishing license with Bungie and Bungie hated them so much they broke it. What was really interesting in this is that, so yeah, it was basically this, it was a snowballing failure, but when they got bought out by Microsoft, the team was hoping that they would cancel Redfall.
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The team was like, Oh, thank God. And they're like, Hey, no guys do what you're doing. They're like, what's his, I forgot his name. His comment of letting them, you know, work on their own just made every, like hearing it now with that context makes this even worse.
00:45:51
Speaker
that you have a team that's doing it that doesn't want it. They were saying that all the people that they were hiring didn't want to do it either. They wanted to do single player. They also underpay all their workers. And it's just, it was a disaster. Of course it turned out like so.
00:46:09
Speaker
Oh boy, it's just it's one of those things where you're just like you always hope that it's a passion project that fails And it's not you know what I mean, right? I'd always rather see a studio take a swing because they want to and they fail on it Then they're like they were told to do something and this is the latter Unfortunately, it was something no one wanted
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah, just like golem or whatever it was. I imagine that team was under the same circumstance. I don't know. I mean, no one wants that. You're working on a classic IP, so maybe that gives you a little there, but.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah. But interesting to hear. It was everything you think would be wrong. Yeah. Also, that old chestnut of X Studio Magic was used. Oh, yeah.
00:47:02
Speaker
I I like how they just keeps popping up like every if you're unaware if you're unaware when Bioware was releasing Anthem and that failed critically. They were like Bioware magic will save us, right? Because it says we as a company can't fail. And then basically people were saying the same thing about Redfall internally, not the developers, I'm sure. But, you know, just like there be like arcade magic will turn it around at the end.
00:47:33
Speaker
Well, look at that. I mean, it restores some faith in me about Arcane, but at the same time, it means that I'm never really going to care about an Arcane game again if 70% of the team that made Prey is left. All of those people are now gone.
00:47:50
Speaker
So Arkane Austin is basically I almost wonder, too. I mean, they they get another shot, right? They can make another game. But like, if Arkane doesn't hit big on their next game, I would not be surprised if Arkane Austin gets shuttered. Mm hmm. Like, like you only you only had so much cash a right on your name. And this is
00:48:13
Speaker
When the when the dirty laundry comes out, that's that more than half of your studio is left. It's like, well, then what's even the fucking point? Mm hmm. Yeah. So I agree. You got them monsters. Yeah. Well, I bet their next game isn't going to be multiplayer. Oh, fucking hope so. If Microsoft makes them do that. No, I don't think Microsoft will.
00:48:38
Speaker
I think they're much better now. Especially if they have Call of Duty. They have the biggest live service game in the world. They'll be fine. Yeah. Speaking of live service games, Money Printer goes burr, baby. Oh, that's right. Diablo 4 is now the fastest selling Blizzard game of all time. Wow. Makes sense. Makes sense.
00:49:05
Speaker
Well, they certainly marketed it enough. Yeah, they did. They marketed the shit out of that game. I'm trying to I don't think they released the actual numbers. They say that more than players, people have already played 93 million hours in just the four days of early access.
00:49:25
Speaker
Has it released yet? It is as of yesterday at 7 p.m. Eastern. It was released. It was released. Wow. Was it in the four days since early access started on June 1st? Diablo 4 has been played for 93 million hours or over 10,000 years. The equivalent to playing 24 hours a day since the beginning of human civilization.
00:49:47
Speaker
I don't think they have the numbers for what they sold in there, but still, I think they're pretty good if they're dunking on them. I'm sure they're waiting for the full release to release their numbers.
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, I've been playing it all weekend. It's real fun. Monetization hasn't bugged me at all. Charles, I know you linked an article in our Slack about how one guy was reaching about it. I think one of the skins is essentially twenty five dollars. And you know what? That's fair. That's a stupid amount of money. But I would say it really is not in your face. Well, the reason I linked that was it's the
00:50:26
Speaker
It was more, it's more of a, the article he writes is more of a lament on like, we should have stopped it at the horse armor. Here's the joke. It has horse armor you can buy. Oh really? Yeah. Time is a flat circle. They know what they're doing. Yep. So yeah, it was, I, um, and I find it because they, they even admit in the article of just being like,
00:50:50
Speaker
Yeah. And you know what? Not, not a couple of weeks ago, did I not spend $5 on a Leon streetwear skin for Resident Evil 4. So, and he goes, so it's just, we let things go and then, you know, the entire, uh, the floodgates are open. People just could do whatever.
00:51:10
Speaker
I mean, here's the thing I'll tell you, and I looked at all those sets and I was like, do I want to buy one? You know, I don't see. I see the back of my head. You know what I mean? Like, you don't see your character as much in this game. Sure. Because of the like isometric or view. So honestly, it might if they start doing like particle effects and shit like, oh, hey, you know, we're going to reskin your skill approach. Yeah, exactly. We're going to reskin the skill. So it does super cool shit. I'll be like.
00:51:40
Speaker
I might think about that. Um, but for right now, now, and I mean, I'm not going to pay more than $25 for it. Like 25 is like the absolute max for me to be like, how much should I really, that's almost half the price of the game. Yeah. Well seven. Yeah, I know. Like, but I mean, I would say it's been super fun. I've had a great time with it. It definitely feels like they picked up right where Diablo three left off. So cool. Well, they needed this to be good. They did.
00:52:09
Speaker
They really fucking well, they still again. Yeah, wait for that battle pass. Let's see how they fuck it up. Sure. Hey, hey, I remember a conversation with you two. Oh, oh, about how Final Fantasy, which ones, which one do you two hate? Is it eight or nine? Oh, no, no, it's fine. Yeah, it's fine. Well, that's right, baby, because Jeff Grubb, rumor monger has said that Square Enix, he says
00:52:37
Speaker
that definitely a Final Fantasy remake is real and happening.
00:52:45
Speaker
Oh, I don't think this was fully a surprise, right? This was also in the Nvidia leaks. It's in the Nvidia leak and the Nvidia leak so far is one for one. I don't think it's missed anything so far. Oh, really? Bloodborne PC was in the Nvidia leak too. Well, also Final Fantasy Tactics remake was also on that list. I'm willing to sell my soul. All right. I'll let nine through if it means tactics gets it.
00:53:11
Speaker
I mean, I mean, you have to figure because they've been tactics would be a pixel remaster, right? And they knock those out pretty quickly. I know. What is the fucking hold up, huh? Yeah. Why did we need triangle strategy? Just give us tactics. Remake your goof. Yeah. Triangle strategy was a good game, but it's not fair. I mean, if you know, I hear you. That's fair.
00:53:38
Speaker
But how does he how does this guy know this? Like this must be one of the most protected. I mean, people have opinions about Jeff Grubb. I actually don't know who he is. He's he's a games journalist and he's often at the source of being like, it's definitely going to be this. And then it's not. And he's like, well, I was wrong. But he's also been right enough that people aren't like they're like,
00:54:05
Speaker
It's he's right. It's not enough. He's not guessing. Right. He's definitely hearing things from people. But I think a lot of times he takes too much to heart when he hears rumors. I don't know. This is such an easy thing to say. I feel like I feel like for a long time, everybody thought nine is going to be remade.
00:54:26
Speaker
but I just don't know how this could get out, because I'm sure Square is guarding this. This is going to be a huge reveal when it happens, because for some reason, everybody thinks this is the best one.
00:54:38
Speaker
Oh, Andy, this weekend, I literally had that argument in the middle of the tournament, because somebody next to me had custom Final Fantasy IX art sleeves. And somebody across the table recognized that art and go, do you know that artist of fan fiction?
00:55:03
Speaker
And somehow that was a thing that led to its own thing, but they were just talking about Final Fantasy IX and hopefully that remake gets fully announced. Hey, if you should make it an interesting game, then go ahead. Right. And I had to shut my mouth because you know what? When we all love Final Fantasy, let's not rain on each other. Exactly. It's not the time and place, right?
00:55:27
Speaker
Not yet, at least. Why? Why remake this one? I don't know. Eight would be an interesting remake. Yeah. I actually would like to see eight remaster. Yeah, I give it a shot. Yeah. For the eight, Zidane. That's not. No, that's not. Yeah. Wait. Oh, so eight squall. Yeah. OK. Yeah. With a gun blade. How do you get cooler than a gun blade? So the devil devil may cry. He also did it.
00:55:55
Speaker
I mean, that was the big thing with eight coming to PC was like, wasn't the, um, the source code for it like lost for like 20 years or some shit. I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds familiar. Yeah. But anyway, we have one.
00:56:15
Speaker
One last thing to close out our show so we don't go over an hour again like we've been doing the past couple weeks. We are exclusively announcing Final Fantasy IX Remake. Thank you. What? We just have one more thing. Yeah, that's for one more thing, James. Oh, I see. No, it's that we are approaching not E3 Summer Game Fest.
00:56:37
Speaker
Oh, that's right, baby. So coming up this week, we have the Gorilla Collective stream. This is Jeff's Summer Game Fest kickoff. That's on Thursday, followed by the Devolver Direct stream. There's the Wholesome Direct, the Future Game Show, the Xbox and Starfield Direct, the PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft Forward, and a Capcom showcase.
00:57:04
Speaker
Um, these are all taking place from Thursday, June 8th to Tuesday or Monday, June 12th in the Eastern time window. Which are you guys most excited about? Probably Devolver for me. Yeah. Devolver is always a fun time. They're just fun. They're fun. And somehow they just have a pretty good track record. They just know how to pick them. Yep.
00:57:33
Speaker
What's what you got Charles Charles This is a tough choice Charles take us through your process what's going on I'm trying like Yeah, I'm trying to think about the things I'm looking forward to sure I think things you would most be looking forward to it either be a Jeff summer game fest or the PC gaming show so
00:58:00
Speaker
So yes, that is definitely that was my thoughts of thinking. I'm trying to decide what game specifically I'm hoping to hear more about. And I'm actually I might be leaning towards the PC gaming show.
00:58:16
Speaker
Mm hmm. Because of I believe they're called Frost Giant, which is the team of RTS people that left Activision Blizzard to make their own Starcraft like art. That's right. Oh, well, you know, which they premiered a little bit of like they showed concept art and some animations last year, if I recall.
00:58:40
Speaker
Um, hopefully it's been a year that they have a little bit more to show for it. I bet it's been on my wish list on steam. Um, you know, since they premiered it. Uh, so I think that's where I'm going to be most happy. I don't have faith that summer game festival have like, well, like, well, they won't have like the thing that'll make me most happy. What's that?
00:59:06
Speaker
Uh, bloodborne 60 FPS. You know, so. I mean, do you think we'll see more deaf stranding too there? Oh, I see. That's the thing though. Like sure. They, I think you would, you would, but like.
00:59:23
Speaker
I really, really want a 60 FPS Bloodborne. What if they answered the PC gaming show? Bloodborne PC at the PC gaming show would be the biggest get. I'd be like, that's incredible. I'm so happy. Yeah, I don't know. Like, yeah. I mean, do you think we'll hear? Do you think we'll finally hear more about Liza P at Summer Game Fest?
00:59:48
Speaker
Um, that would make sense. So I'm at the point, especially since the demo that was, you know, that you've got, you've played and some other people have played and given their impressions that I don't need to see it more. I just need it out. Well, right now we don't have a confirmed date. We just have August. Right. But that's what I'm saying. Like, I just need it out. Even if they do it today and they were like, here's the date, I'll be like, okay, cool. I mean, here's the thing with that game. If they pushed it up into July,
01:00:18
Speaker
I wouldn't be shocked. It played super clean. Right. Like it was playing great when I played it. And that was about two months ago at this point. I mean, I don't know if they're going to do a physical release for it probably, but I don't know. I wouldn't be shocked. Maybe if they announce like or at least early August, late July for Liza P, if they don't delay it.
01:00:43
Speaker
It's you're either going to get that game early or they're doing it. That's I think that's going to be the two options for that. I don't think they're going to push that game into just like, you know, oh, it'll come out September, October. They're not going to set it out to die next to fucking Spider-Man starfield, you know? Although maybe that may also he has. Can you imagine? Well, actually, that's not true. They have they have Spider-Man. That's fine. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know.
01:01:09
Speaker
I think I'm curious about the PC gaming show, too. PC gaming show is always this very weird showcase where it's like, I don't know, man, like an hour and a half of bullshit and then 20 minutes of like, holy shit, why is this game here? That's like a big deal. Yeah. Didn't Midnight Sons get it announced the PC gaming show? Actually, it might have. Yeah, I think it might have.
01:01:38
Speaker
Everyone's like, why are you announcing a Marvel game in a fucking day nine show? It's weird, but yeah. Well, I'm going to be in Mexico for all. Oh, yeah, we won't hear James playing his drinking game. Well, actually, I'll be in an all inclusive. So you know what? I could do. I could really do the drinking game. I guess that money is worth going. That's right.
01:02:04
Speaker
Just sit at the fucking infinity pool. My partner stares at me madly while I go, well, deaf stranding. Bloodborne take bloodborne. Bring me a bottle. Bring me a bottle. That sounds like a nice time. Say I'm looking forward to it.
01:02:21
Speaker
Uh, but we'll, I w we're gonna fucking next episode is going to be well over an hour, but we'll talk, we'll talk about that next time on another episode of add to party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I've been your host James. I don't want another fucking new social media platform, Hartwell, and I've been joined by
01:02:44
Speaker
Honestly, Charles, I guess I just don't use the internet much anymore. And I've been joined by Andy meet his murder.
01:03:00
Speaker
We're gonna get you vegan yet, Andy. I know I'm getting there. You won't need anything that casts a shadow. Maybe I can't switch just yet. Have a good night. Have a good night.